Picturing Islam : Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld Kenneth M. George © 2010 Kenneth M. George. ISBN: 978-1-405-12958-9 A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication This edition fi rst published 2010 © 2010 Kenneth M. George Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientifi c, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Offi ce John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offi ces 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offi ces, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/ wiley-blackwell. The right of Kenneth M. George to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data George, Kenneth M. Picturing Islam : art and ethics in a Muslim lifeworld / Kenneth M. George. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-2958-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-2957-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Pirous, A. D. (Abdul Djalil), 1932– 2. Muslim artists–Indonesia–Aceh–Biography. 3. Islam and art–Indonesia–Aceh. 4. Islam and culture–Indonesia–Aceh. 5. Islam and politics–Indonesia–Aceh. 6. Art and anthropology–Indonesia–Aceh. 7. Art and religion–Indonesia–Aceh. 8. Politics and culture–Indonesia–Aceh. I. Title. ND1026.8.P57G47 2010 759.9598–dc22 [B] 2009040194 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5 on 13 pt Minion by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Printed in Singapore 01 2010 For Pirous and Erna CONTENTS List of Illustrations viii Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Note on Qur’anic Verse xvii Guide to Indonesian Spelling and Pronunciation xviii Introduction: Picturing Islam 1 1 Becoming a Muslim Citizen and Artist 15 2 Revelations and Compulsions 39 3 Diptych – Making Art Islamic and Making Islamic Art Indonesian 54 Part 1: Making Art Islamic 54 Part 2: Making Islamic Art Indonesian 66 4 Spiritual Notes in the Social World 80 5 Anguish, Betrayal, Uncertainty, and Faith 107 Conclusion: A Retrospective 132 Afterword: Choosing a Frame 143 References 148 Index 155 vii ILLUSTRATIONS Plates Between pp. 46 and 47 1 At the Beginning, the Voice Said “ Recite, ” 1982 2 For the Sparkling Morning Light , 1982 3 Surat Ichlas , 1970 4 Sura Isra II: Homage to Mother , 1982 5 A k asab designed and embroidered by Pirous ’ s mother, Hamidah, in 1941 6 White Writing , 1972 7 The Night Journey , 1976 8 And God the Utmost , 1978 9 Prayer XII/Homage to Tan ö h Ab é e , 1981 10 A Forest of Pens, a Sea of Ink, the Beautiful Names of God Never Cease Being Written , 1985 11 Green Valley , 2000 12 The Horizon on the Southern Plain , 1998 13 It Pierces the Sky , 1997 14 The Night That is More Perfect than 1000 Months , 2000 15 Triangle with an Ascending Vertical Gold Line , 1993 16 Meditation on a Circle with a Vertical Line , 2000 17 Pillars of the Sky , 1996 18 An Admonition to the Leader: Concerning the Transient Palace and the Beginning and End of Life , 1995 19 Detail from A lif Lam Mim/Only God is All - Knowing , 1998 20 Once There was a Holy War in Aceh: Homage to the Intrepid Hero Teuku Oemar, 1854 – 1899 , 1998 21 The Shackling of the Book of the Holy War, II , 1999 22 The painter brooding over They Who are Buried without Names , 2001 (photograph) 23 A People ’ s Fate is in Their Own Hands , 2001 24 Meditation Toward the Enlightened Spirit, I , 2000 25 Allah. Detail from 1 7 Names for God , 1980 viii List of Illustrations Figures 0.1 A. D. Pirous, 2001 2 0.2 Pirous at work in his home studio, Bandung, 2001 6 0.3 Making a preparatory work for a painting, 2001 1 1 1.1 Maps of Aceh and Indonesia 16 1.2 “ Boss Piroes, ” Mouna Piroes Noor Muhammad 1 9 1.3 Hamidah, Pirous ’ s mother, early 1950s 2 1 1.4 “ Mopizar, ” Mouna Piroes Zainal Arifi n, Medan, Sumatra, early 1950s 21 1.5 Pirous with his Uncle Ahmad on the eve of leaving Meulaboh for Bandung, 1955 26 1.6 Ries Mulder teaching his course on “ Art Appreciation, ” Bandung, 1955 31 1.7 Pirous with wife and painter Erna Garnasih Pirous, Bandung, 1968 34 1.8 “ Without a doubt, a modern artist, ” Pirous with his paintings in a publicity shot, 1968 36 1.9 The Sun after September 1965 , 1968 37 3.1 Pirous at work at Decenta preparing the serigraph, N oah ’ s Deluge , Bandung, 1976 55 3.2 Pirous, Machmud Buchari, and architect Ahmad Noe ’ man meeting with the Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs Munawir Sjadzali, Jakarta, 1992 or 1993 56 3.3 Ilham Khoiri and A. D. Pirous at Serambi Pirous reviewing the calligraphy on The Poem of Ma ’ rifat , 2002 65 3.4 Pirous correcting the Qur ’ anic calligraphy on The Verse of the Throne , 2002 66 3.5 Muhammad, a calligraphic installation at Istiqlal Mosque, Jakarta, designed and supervised by Pirous 69 3.6 Sketch for R eminiscences of Aceh, I , December 23, 1988 72 3.7 Reproduction of the last page of the Al - Qur ’ an Mushaf Istiqlal 76 4.1 Ephemeral Mountain: Travel Note VI , 1989 89 4.2 Come Back to the Lap of Your Lord with Devotion , 2000 90 5.1 The Truth that Struggles Against the Darkness/QS 113 Al Falaq , 2000 121 5.2 Once There Was a Holy War in Aceh , 2002, hanging at Galeri Nasional, Jakarta 124 5.3 Sketch for H as That Light Already Shone Down from Above? , 1999 125 5.4 In his own hand(s). Pirous labeling and signing A People ’ s Fate is in Their Own Hands , 2002 127 5.5 Through the Days of Our Lives, There is Nothing That Can Give Us Help, Save for the Doing of Good Deeds , 2002 129 ix Paintings must be like miracles. Mark Rothko PREFACE Picturing Islam is an ethnographic portrait of a postcolonial Muslim artist, Indonesian painter Abdul Djalil Pirous. My goal is to sketch a story of self - fashion- ing in the contemporary cauldron of politics, art, and religion. At root, this is a story about making art and a lifeworld “ Islamic ” as a way of coming to terms with political, cultural, and historical circumstances. It considers very generally, then, a question of enduring interest to anthropologists and others in the humanities and social sciences – the question of subjectivity, our experience of acting and being acted upon in our relations with others as we are caught up in the sway of powerful social and ideological forces. As Judith Butler ( 2005 ), Michel Foucault ( 1997, 2005) , Paul Ricoeur ( 1992 ), and others have shown so persuasively, questions of subjectiv- ity are also questions of ethics. We commonly look to art and religion for special insights into the ethics and aesthetics of self - fashioning, despite all our trouble in defi ning art and religion, or the risks we may take in giving them privileged atten- tion. My long collaboration with Pirous has given me a chance to refl ect on the hopes and perils of self - fashioning in a Muslim lifeworld. How Pirous has pictured Islam is not just about his relationship to God, but also about his artistic and ethical being and location in this world. My aim here, then, has been to write an accessible ethnographic account that will fi nd use in a broad range of classroom discussions in anthropology, religious studies, Asian studies, and art history. Picturing Islam is not a primer on that reli- gion, or on the Qur’ an, but a portrait of how Islamic ideas and dispositions might settle into the experiential and expressive lifeworld of a believer, or make their way into art. It is a study of lived religion. At the same time, I have tried to show in this book how ethnography might be used to “ confront art history with the present tense ” (Belting 2003 : 192). In that spirit, this book is a modest contribution to a global art history that includes Southeast Asian art and Islamic art as part of its theoretical, historical, and critical venture. Framing the book as I did around an empirical look at art and ethics in the work of a Muslim painter, and wanting to keep it to a manageable length, I left many xi Preface theoretical and comparative questions unaddressed. Colleagues interested in sub- jectivity, the anthropology of art, or art history and visual culture may want to glance at the Afterword. I will be especially glad if Muslim readers fi nd this book useful or pleasurable. If they fi nd errors of understanding in this book, the errors are mine, despite Pirous ’ s generous and unfl agging effort to help me see clearly. xii